The present invention relates to a display device that may be preferably used as a vehicular display device mounted on a vehicle such as an automobile.
Among the vehicular display devices for displaying various information by indicating with a pointer an index such as a scale or a character provided in the design part of a dial, black-face type display devices have been recently used that includes a face glass plate covering a dial or a pointer formed by a dark-color material and is designed to illuminate light onto the rear surface of the dial to cause a pointer or an index to appear distinctively. Such black-face type display devices are resistant to the brightness outside the vehicle and are generally excellent in visibility.
With a related black-face type display device, the face glass plate is formed by a dark-color material. Thus, the entire face glass plate uniformly looks pitch-black when a light source to illuminate light onto the rear surface of the dial is turned off. This results in a monotonous and frigid appearance.
In order to eliminate such demerits, as shown in FIG. 6, there has been proposed a vehicular display device 50 which includes a smoked plate 51 covering a dial 54 and a pointer 55 and an another smoked plate 52 covering the smoked plate 51 and an ornamental metallic cover 56 surrounding the smoked plate 51.
In the vehicular display device 50, when a light-emitting diode 57 is turned on, the dial 54 and the pointer 55 is visible through the smoked plate 52 and the smoked plate 51, and the metallic cover 56 is visible through the smoked plate 52. When the light-emitting diode 57 is turned off, the dial 54 and the pointer 55 are hidden through the smoked plate 52 and the smoked plate 51. The light transmittance of the smoked plate 52 is set higher than that of the smoked plate 51 so that the metallic cover 56 remains visible through the smoked plate 52.
The related art display device disclosed in JP-A-2006-3341 uses two smoked plates 51, 52 in order to constantly make visible the metallic cover 56, which results in a complicated structure. Another problem is that the smoked plate 51 acts as a reflecting surface and the smoked plate 51 is conspicuously reflected on the smoked plate 52.